Ship Wreck
by Totally Raven
Summary: Remus' world is falling apart. Only Sirius can put it back together... Remus/ Sirius SLASH. Oneshot.


A/N: So, I drew a picture once, many years ago of Remus and Sirius fighting, and decided I wanted to write a story one day where they were together and then broke up, however the idea of how to do it never came to me. I thought 'Ship Wreck' a brilliant name. Yesterday, on my way home from a night shift, this idea came to me. It started with the first line you will read and the ideas didn't stop. This story has been written and editted in less than ten hours. I hope you enjoy it!

Disclaimer: I don't own. This is even canon! Unheard of for me when writing Sirius/ Remus!

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><p>Remus screamed for hours. He screamed until his throat felt like it had been sandpapered and he lost his voice. He screamed, and pulled his hair out at the roots and threw furniture across the room. He screamed until he went numb.<p>

He went into the bedroom. Less than twenty-four hours ago he had been lying in that bed, with his lover, and now everything had changed, changed forever. Remus had never been so angry in his entire life, not even as he grew up and had to come to terms with his lycanthropy and what it was going to mean for him throughout his lifetime. He'd _never_ been so angry, not even when he found out his bite hadn't been an accident.

In a fit of sudden rage, Remus flew at the bed and tore the sheets away from the mattress. He tried screaming again, but it came out as an anguished, raspy shriek. Sirius' scent wafted out of the linen and into Remus' nostrils, and he flailed among the sheets, trying the rip them into shreds, only partially succeeding. He got the sheets tangled around himself, that familiar Sirius smell driving him crazy. He finally extracted himself and pitched the sheets at the ground, kicking them furiously across the room.

Remus threw himself on the floor, cross-legged, his hands clutching the side of his head. He whimpered like a child, trying not to think, trying not to feel, trying not to remember the look on Dumbledore's face when they'd spoken, trying not to remember the feel of Sirius' body coiled beside him in that horrendous bed, trying not to remember the feel of that goodbye, that _final_ kiss...

Remus lost track of how long he sat on the bedroom floor. Eventually he got up and walked to the kitchen. Without really being aware of what he was doing, he went to the liquor cupboard and took out a bottle of wine. He climbed onto the kitchen table and lay down, swigging, with difficulty, direct from the bottle.

Sometime as he was gulping down his second bottle, Remus fell into a fitful slumber. He woke up with a sore throat, a stiff back and an ache in his chest so severe he wondered for a moment if he was dying too.

Somewhere through the fog of his despair and the beating drum of his hangover, Remus could hear what sounded to be celebrating. He stumbled to the front door, not caring how he must have looked, stooped from sleeping on a table, clothes rumpled, hair un-brushed, with half a bottle of wine in his hand. He threw open the front door of the townhouse that until yesterday he had shared with Sirius for over three years.

Aghast, he looked out on the scene unfolding on the street before him: owls soared across the morning sky and there were wizards everywhere, both in robes and muggle clothes, shooting fireworks and stars into the sky with their wands, racing around, cheering, hugging, happy...

Remus stood in his doorway, dumbfounded.

Then he heard what people were saying: "He's dead! You-Know-Who! Completely dead!", "We're saved, the war is over!", "This is the greatest day in history!", "Did you hear? He survived – Harry Potter survived!", "A baby defeated You-Know-Who!", "The boy who lived – Harry Potter!"

Remus felt all the blood run out of his face. Before he knew what he was doing, he was out in the street, yelling as loud as his abused throat would allow him: "How can you celebrate? They're dead! They're all dead, all of them, dead! This is the worst day of my life! I've lost everyone! _Everyone_! Stop cheering, stop it, stop it, _stop it_!"

Some people were staring at him, a grieving werewolf standing dishevelled in the middle of a street party, completely out of place, screeching abuse at them from a voice so hoarse it was almost inaudible. But most people didn't notice; they just continued celebrating.

"Merlin bless the Boy Who Lived! Harry Potter has saved us all!"

Remus threw his bottle down on the road; it smashed on the asphalt and the wine trickled into the cracks, pooling, looking like blood, taunting Remus. He stared at it, stared until the shapes made no sense, stared until the puddles of wine morphed into the shapes of people, innocent people in a street that had exploded, innocent people who had died because of-

With a bellow, Remus ran back into the house, cutting his feet on shards of glass. He crossed to the fireplace in the kitchen, threw the green powder in and Flooed Dumbledore.

"I have to see him!" Remus yelled as soon as the room stopped spinning. Dumbledore's pet phoenix, Fawkes, floated down to sit beside Remus' disembodied head in the fireplace. It called softly to him, but Remus didn't want to be comforted.

"Remus," Dumbledore appeared suddenly in front of him. The man's face was drawn and pale, his eyes were red-rimmed, but right at that moment Remus didn't care about _his_ grief, didn't care that Dumbledore's favourite students were dead, or, as the case might be, as good as dead. "Oh, Remus..."

Remus didn't want pity. "I have to see him. Before you send him away to live with those horrible people, you _have_ to let me see him!"

Dumbledore's eyes were distraught. "Of course, Remus. I'll have Hagrid stop at your house on his way to Little Whinging."

Remus knew he should say thank you. He knew he shouldn't be self-pitying. He knew that others were suffering too. But he couldn't help himself.

"Good," was all he said, then pulled his head out of the fire.

Remus went and sat down at the kitchen table, with his head in his hands. He thought about eating something, but couldn't bear the thought. He considered going to take a shower, but couldn't be arsed to move. Instead, he just sat there, looking down at the table, feeling somehow both overwhelmed and disconnected.

Remus wasn't sure how much time passed, perhaps he'd even fallen asleep again. He jerked up from the table with a violent start when he heard the familiar growl of an engine. He raced to the back door, not sure what to expect, his heart pounding madly in his chest. Surely Sirius couldn't have gotten away from the Dementors? Surely he wouldn't return after ... after everything he had caused...

Remus threw the door open, peering into the small rear yard. His heart did a painful bellyflop in his chest when he saw the bike. First, though, he saw Hagrid – Hagrid was hard to miss. "Where did you get that?" Remus demanded, flinching at the ragged sound of his own voice.

Hagrid's face was sad, and he had little Harry cradled in one giant paw. He answered, "He gave it to me," softly, in his rough, deep voice.

_Why? Why would he..._ Remus mentally slapped himself. _No thinking. _Don't_ think about it_, he berated himself.

"Give him to me," Remus said, putting his arms out. Hagrid gently lowered the small bundle into Remus' arms.

Remus looked down at Harry, and felt gravity begin to work on his tear ducts. He sniffed fiercely, and blinked. He was not going to cry, not for Sirius. And not for Harry – Remus knew that Harry couldn't grow up being pitied. As for Lily and James and Peter ... well, that just was too much. If Remus began to cry for them he felt that he would never stop, and he would cry out every drop of fluid in his body, and shrivel up and die.

Baby Harry blinked up at Remus in the afternoon sunlight. His face was so pure, innocent and trusting. Remus reached out and traced the jagged laceration splitting the infant's forehead. He gathered Harry up and hugged him against his shoulder, squeezing tighter than was probably safe, but Harry never made a sound. Remus kept his eyes shut and hummed, rocking back and forth a little as he embraced his friend's only child, the only thing left of his dear friend...

Eventually Remus lowered Harry. He looked down into the babe's face before drawing him close again, whispering into his tiny ear, "You're going to grow up and not know who I am. You won't remember me. You won't miss me. So I'll have to do it for both of us. I hope we can meet again, and be ... friends. And ... and please, please forgive me, Harry, for not protecting them. If only I..."

Remus didn't finish that final thought. He sniffed again and passed Harry back to Hagrid.

"Remus," Remus looked up at Hagrid when the latter spoke, and noticed the big man was crying into his beard. "I ... I don' believe Sirius did it. It's just not right... yer shoulda seen him when he gave me the bike..."

"Don't!" Remus snapped, surprising himself. "Don't fill my head with those sorts of hopes. It's not fair. They're all dead, Hagrid and Sirius... well, he might as well be!"

Hagrid thumped Remus hard on the shoulder. "I've known you all since yer were kids, Remus. I know people. He didn't do it. Now that Peter, I never trusted him..."

"Hagrid!" Remus shouted, or tried to. "Peter is dead! Sirius killed him! Don't you know what this is doing to me?"

Hagrid sobbed harder. "I'm sorry, Remus," he said, and pulled the thin young man into a one armed embrace, Harry nestled against them both. Remus screwed his face up _(I will _not_ cry)_ and hugged Hagrid back.

Remus watched Hagrid leave, scowling after the motorbike. He returned inside, and looked around the kitchen. He felt suddenly suffocated. This house was going to kill him.

He crossed the kitchen, grabbing another bottle of wine as he passed, and walked to the trap door that was the entrance to the kitchen cellar. He opened it and went down the steps, not looking where he was going. He knew the cellar well – it contained the box where he endured his transformations. Under normal circumstances, nothing could have persuaded Remus to come down here at any time apart from full moon, but with all of his closest friends dead and the knowledge that his boyfriend was in fact a Death Eater, these weren't normal circumstances. But now, this was the only part of the house that was Remus' alone, the only place where there weren't (many) memories of Sirius. This was where he planned to stay.

Remus lost track of how many days and nights he spent locked behind the bars of his box. He slept a lot of the time, and ranted and tried not to think. When he did think, he ended up beating his hands against the stone walls of the cellar, and pulling his hair, and screaming and screaming until he started to cough up blood. He felt like the misery in his soul would never be screamed out.

He thought of how James and Lily must have felt in those final few moments, knowing they had been betrayed by the (supposedly) closest of friends... he thought of poor Peter, who had nothing to do with it, who had tried to do the right thing and was murdered for it... he thought of Harry and how he would grow up alone with Lily's intolerable sister... He thought of how glad he was James' parents were already gone – had they been alive it would have been more than they could bear to lose their only son, the apple of their eye...

He tried hard not to, but he thought of Sirius, too. He thought of all the happy times they had shared, the wonderful intimate moments that had made up their life together, the cherished memories of their school years, carefree times all tarnished by the fact that Sirius was a murderer. Remus tried not to think about whether every moment of their relationship was a lie. He tried not to tell himself that Sirius had never loved him, that every touch was fraudulent, that every sweet kiss was the kiss of Judas.

Occasionally Remus thought about what he was going to do now, but not very often. When he did it was often along the lines of what he was going to do with himself. He was only twenty-one, he didn't have the strength to deal with all of this. He had lost all of his friends, he had lost all of the people who mattered to him. He was completely alone – he had no job, he wasn't close to his parents, he had no other close friends and, to make life interesting, he was a werewolf.

Once or twice in his more maudlin moments he thought about ending it. But when he was honest with himself, he knew it wasn't what he wanted. Also, Hagrid's words about Sirius kept echoing in his mind...

Dumbledore came to visit him. Remus was sitting in the corner of his cell, bottle in hand. He didn't know how many days had passed since he'd settled there. Dumbledore didn't come in, but sat outside on the small bench where Remus kept his post-transformation supplies.

"Remus," he said gently, soothingly. "Remus..."

Remus tried hard not to look at him, but the problem with being a good student was that it was hard to break the habit of obeying one's teachers.

"Remus, you can't go on like this. You have to mourn properly, not cover your feelings with alcohol."

"I'm not covering. I don't feel anything," Remus replied, his voice gruff from yelling. "Just numb."

"Remus, you are grieving. I know you don't want to hear it, but it _will_ get easier. But first you have to give yourself permission to move on. Stop blaming yourself."

Remus couldn't stop blaming himself. He couldn't stop hating himself. His boyfriend, his own _boyfriend_, the man he loved and trusted, had betrayed them _all_. He had killed three of his friends. He had destroyed Remus' life. And Remus couldn't forgive himself for not being able to read the signs – how could he have _not_ known that Sirius was ... evil. And conspiring against them all. That he was loyal to Voldemort. He hated himself for not knowing. He should have known.

"Hagrid thinks it's all a mistake. That Sirius has been set up somehow," Dumbledore said, a little hesitantly.

Remus snarled.

"What do you think?"

"I think he did it. I..." Remus started emphatically but trailed off.

"Tell me, Remus," Dumbledore said gently.

Remus' lips trembled as he said, "I _have_ to believe he did it."

"Why?"

"Because he's done it before. To me – with Snape. He betrayed me to Snape in fifth year just because that slimy git had offended him somehow. Sirius never thought about anyone but himself! Besides, who else could it have been?"

There was silence for a minute, and Remus dug his fingernails into his palms, trying not to lose his temper while Dumbledore was watching him, trying to resist the urge to thump his head repeatedly against the wall, just to feel something other than the anger or the _nothing_.

Then Dumbledore said, "If it makes a difference, I agree with Hagrid."

Remus was stunned. He made some sort of noise in his battered throat, and then choked a little. He lifted his head fully and stared at his old Headmaster.

"I'm a good judge of people," Dumbledore said, and his voice was firm. "And I know him. Whatever happened, Sirius would never have deliberately betrayed his family – and that's what you boys all are."

"Were..." Remus muttered.

"Remus," Dumbledore said, very seriously, "_cry_. You'll feel so much better."

But Remus couldn't cry. And he didn't want to hear what Dumbledore had to say. He didn't want to consider _that_ possibility. Dumbledore had stayed and spoken to him for a long time that day. Remus wasn't sure if he felt better or worse afterwards, but one thing was sure, he didn't want to hear that people thought Sirius was innocent. That was just madness – unless they could explain _why_. And nobody could.

Remus stopped eating. He drank too much and showered only when he could be bothered. When he did shower, he would sit under the water and keep it on him, piping hot, fingering the scar on his right shoulder that marked him forever as a werewolf. He would always go back down to his cage afterwards, often putting on the same clothes just so he didn't have to go in to the wardrobe and see all of Sirius' fashionable things there.

Remus had been living in his cell for over two months when Hagrid came back to see him. He had endured two transformations, with another just around the corner; he had missed Christmas and New Year. Holidays were empty now – he remembered the previous Christmas: The whole gang had gone to James and Lily's house because Harry was then only a few months old. Sirius had made a fuss of him, Peter had taken photographs... they'd all been so happy...

Remus felt like his whole life had been a lie.

"My dear Merlin, Remus," Hagrid grumbled when he came to visit. "You're so damn thin."

Remus hadn't really noticed; he looked down at himself in surprise. He'd always been underweight but now, Hagrid was right, he was severely emaciated.

Hagrid didn't say much to him, and to Remus' great relief, he didn't mention a possibility of Sirius being innocent, which gladdened the young man no end. But he did say, "Time to get on with life, Remus. Yeh've got to live a full enough life fer all of 'em."

When Hagrid was gone, Remus thought about that. _For all of them_. Because he was the last one. The final Marauder. _I'm the only one left!_ Remus thought, _and then he cried_.

He cried for days. He would weep and weep until he was exhausted, and his throat and eyes and nose and chest _hurt_ and stang. He cried until his head ached. As he cried, he felt the full weight of it all. He wanted to cut his throat. He wanted to cut _Sirius'_ throat. He beat his fists on the floor and they bled and bled and he cried like a two year old who didn't get the Christmas present they'd hoped for.

Eventually, and Remus didn't know how long it took, the tears stopped. He fell asleep and slept for hours. Shortly after, he endured another transformation, and then wept again, this time for himself. Again he slept. When he next woke, he felt ... better. The feeling was strange – like the eerie calm after a horrific storm. It sort of made him feel guilty. But at least he was feeling things again. Remus _felt_ like he was starting to mend. After all, he needed to do enough living for four people now.

He sold the townhouse and left almost everything behind, buying a small cottage in the country. He furnished it simply, and it was his alone, nothing of Sirius' was here, not even the photos of them together. Remus hadn't had the heart to destroy them – they were in his Gringotts vault. He ate chocolate whenever despondency crept upon him. Dumbledore helped him find work to maintain himself, but it was hard for him to keep a job. Muggles got suspicious of his frequent 'illnesses' and wizard folk never quite trusted him. He made do with what little he made at a time. Before he knew it, years had passed.

He travelled extensively. Lily had always wanted to see India, and James had always wanted to visit Germany. Remus saw them both.

He found himself thinking about Sirius more and more as the time passed, and about the adamant declarations of his innocence Dumbledore and Hagrid had made. Sometimes he found himself hoping it was true, and then wishing it wasn't, because the heartache was too much to bear. He hated the idea of an innocent man inside Azkaban. He convinced himself, time after time, of Sirius' guilt.

But Remus realised his subconscious couldn't be fooled so easily. He found himself, over the years, doing little things to remind himself of Sirius, such as growing daffodils in his cottage garden. As a joke, on their first actual date Sirius had given Remus daffodils and told the werewolf they were his favourite flower. Remus travelled to Egypt too, somewhere Sirius had always yearned to visit. Little decorations that Sirius would have liked crept into the cottage.

But in the front of Remus' mind, Sirius was always guilty, always a backstabber, always a traitor...

Remus learned to get along by himself. He made some friends in the wizarding community, but never let them get too close. He drank less and took better care of himself. His hair started to turn grey.

And suddenly, one day, twelve years had passed. He was offered a job at Hogwarts, which he eagerly accepted, knowing the job was cursed, knowing Snape was there and would make his life hell, _knowing_ that a large part of his being hired was to do (for some reason) with Sirius breaking out of Azkaban, knowing that Dumbledore was up to something... knowing he would finally get to see Harry again.

The first time he saw Harry his breath caught in his throat. He wanted to throw his arms around him and cry in his hair. He wanted to trace that scar again, like he had when Harry was only a year old. But of course he didn't.

As for the rest of that year, well, that story is well known.

When Remus left Hogwarts at the end of the year, he felt like a different man. He felt elated. He couldn't believe all that had happened. He couldn't believe Sirius had suspected _him_ of being a traitor. At least _that_ knowledge stopped him from feeling too guilty about all those years he had spent hating, lying to himself...

When he had seen that name, _Peter Pettigrew_, on the Marauder's Map, he had been gobsmacked. But then the puzzle pieces began to slot together in his mind. He remembered Hagrid's words, all those years ago: _'I don' believe Sirius did it ... Now that Peter, I never trusted him.'_

When he saw Sirius (and it was a shock and so _horrible_ to see him like _that_) hunched in the corner of that hideous Shrieking Shack, a fat cat slumped across him, he hadn't thought, had only reacted. That hug (to touch him again!) ... the knowledge (the truest of friends!) ... the void in his heart began to fill.

He was glad he had planted daffodils and gone to Egypt. After all, he had had to live enough for four lives – just, one life he had had the wrong way around.

The day after Remus arrived back home at his little cottage there was thump at the door. When he answered it a large black dog walked sedately inside, dignified and solemn.

Remus smiled in greeting. When he smiled, now, he felt truly happy. So happy he almost thought his heart would break. "I wondered how long it would take you to get here."

The dog morphed and changed and then Sirius, Remus' own dear Sirius, was sitting on the floor. He was painfully thin. His eyes were haunted.

Remus put a hand on Sirius' shoulder. "Take a shower," he said, steering him in the right direction. "I'll make some hot chocolate, and then we'll talk it all out."

Later, the two men sat in Remus' tiny living room together, at opposite ends of a couch. Sirius was dressed in Remus' least shabby clothes and they were even looser on him than they were on Remus. They both had steaming mugs in their hands and Remus had laid out a plate of chocolate biscuits which he demanded Sirius to eat.

Sirius' lips stretched in a hollow grin. "Trying to fatten me up so you can eat me?" he joked.

Ah, it was like they'd never been apart. Remus chuckled. "Maybe," he said. "If you're lucky." He reached out a hand and ran it gently over Sirius' desolate face. Thirty-four years old was so young for a wizard. Remus could see the shadow of Sirius' youth hidden behind the dark memories of his Azkaban days.

They talked for hours, apologising and explaining and apologising again.

"I didn't know what else to think," Remus said as a starting point.

"I don't blame you," Sirius replied, looking away. "Peter had it all planned so well. He knew I'd go after him. He set me up. But... I blame myself – it was _my_ decision that killed James and Lily."

"No," Remus said. "I know I can't change what you believe, but it wasn't your decision alone. It was all of us. We were a family, we made our decisions together. It got to us all; we stopped trusting each other."

"That was Peter as well," Sirius said softly. "He drove wedges between us all, laying little traps to trick us, telling little lies. I should have known better. When I went after him, I was crazed, unhinged, mad with grief and guilt. I wanted him to pay for his betrayal. I wanted to kill him." Remus understood how that felt. Only those few days ago he had calmly said the same thing himself. He let Sirius continue.

"When I confronted him in that street I was just shouting and shouting, not making any sense. I don't remember anything I said to him. He had it all _planned_. He was ready for me! He yelled that it was _my_ fault, that _I_ was a traitor, that I had been working for Voldemort. He killed everyone close enough to hear what I was saying, he blew the whole street up, all those muggles dead. He nearly killed me too, but was able to get a shield up in time. I don't know if he realised I hadn't died until later... I just remember standing in the street, full of fury, feeling completely numb, just staring, blankly, at the finger on the ground, mocking me. And when I looked around and saw all those muggles, I was devastated. Those people's deaths are on me. It was like a shipwreck happening all around me, then it hit me, all at once, how he had it all worked out, all set up ready to blame me. We all knew Death Eaters were being sent to Azkaban without trial, so whether he killed me or not once he had a scenario that would imply my guilt he knew _he_ was safe. I didn't know Peter was _so_ smart, setting such an efficient trap – all that set up, _for _me! I laughed - I was hysterical. I completely went mad then, completely insane, and I just stood there and _laughed_.

"That's how they found me. And they sent me to Azkaban, and when the insanity subsided and the grief began to pass, almost a year in that was, I realised I had to stay alive, and fight, so that I could come back and avenge James and Lily, and explain things to you and beg your forgiveness. But it was hard to find the motivation in there; one day became another... until I saw that newspaper and realised Harry might be in danger...

"That damnable Peter – how could we ever have trusted him?"

"He was a brother to us," Remus said softly, reaching out and taking a hold of Sirius' hand. To his surprise, tears welled up in the older man's shadowed eyes. The two were silent for a long while, Sirius not meeting Remus' eyes.

Finally, he said, "I've missed you so much Remus. I've felt so guilty about not trusting you then, all of these years. It was lucky, in a way, that I did though, because guilt is a negative feeling – I could think about you and the Dementors couldn't take you away from me. When I found out you were at Hogwarts too I wanted to contact you, so very badly. I was afraid, though, of how you'd react, if you'd have listened to me, if you still ... uh, cared about me. The Dementors took away all my hope. I wanted to apologise for what I'd caused, I've been utterly wracked by guilt. My whole life these past years had been guilt and revenge. I've been so angry..."

"I don't blame you," Remus said. For him though, this was not a moment of repentance, but one of joy. His world had come back to rights, in one small way. He said so to Sirius.

"What d'you mean?" the brunet asked, wiping a bony hand across his eyes.

"Even when I believed ... the worst, of you, I could never stop loving you. I hated you, but I loved you."

Sirius gave a tiny, watery smile. "You did?"

Remus nodded, smiling back. "Can't you tell? I tried to block you from my life, to obliterate you. But no matter how hard I tried, I couldn't." He pointed out the window to where his daffodils were just dying off. A strange look crossed Sirius' face, a look of absolute wonder. Next Remus pulled a book off of his shelf and passed it to the other.

"Egypt..." Sirius whispered, awed. Remus watched as the brunet ran his fingers over the pictures of Remus in various touristy places.

"Come and see my spare room," Remus said next. Sirius followed him down the short hallway to the bedroom. Remus threw open the door to reveal a room with cream walls (very Remus-like) but curtains of a shocking, brilliant bright blue, with a pattern laid out in silver glitter. The bed was covered with a bright red and orange tie-die comforter, very similar to one Sirius had had during school.

Sirius didn't say anything for a bit, and when he spoke it was in a voice stunned by sudden memory, "That blue... that's my favourite colour."

"You see? I couldn't block you out of my life, no matter how much I wanted to," Remus said quietly.

"Did you really want to?" Sirius asked as Remus led the way back to the lounge room. He sounded sad, sadder than Remus had ever heard anyone - except perhaps himself twelve years ago.

"I had to," Remus said. "It was so hard..."

"It's been hard for me too."

"That's got to be the understatement of the year," Remus said and chuckled a tiny bit.

"Your laugh sounds different," Sirius said, looking absolutely enchanted with the sound.

"Mm, it is," Remus said. "I permanently damaged my throat..."

And he shared his story with Sirius.

"I'm so sorry," Sirius said, head hanging. "What a fool I was."

"I'm sorry too," Remus said. "But it's in the past now. We have a future to look forward to. I can help you – I fixed my life. We can fix yours. Together."

Sirius smiled; this time it was far less forced. "I'd like that," he said. "I'd like to try."

Sirius moved up the couch to sit close beside Remus, and slowly wrapped his wasted arms around the werewolf. Remus reciprocated, holding Sirius tight against him. It was the nicest feeling Remus had had for many, many years. Sirius whispered, "How did I survive all these years without you?"

Neither of them could answer that.

It took time, but Sirius was able to find his smile again – and Remus made sure of it. He involved himself in Harry's life and Remus was sure that in a way Sirius saw it as trying to pay back James for all those years Harry had been alone, for all those years he hadn't been able to be a godparent.

They went to Egypt together. Harry wrote to Sirius and the man returned the letter with a vibrant African bird whose colours delighted him. "There's no colour in Azkaban," he told Remus. "Just shadows, everywhere." At first Sirius had felt further guilt at his new life, explaining to Remus how unfair it was that he was getting a second chance James would never have.

"You have two lives to live now," Remus explained. "Your own, and the one you should have had."

As time passed Sirius gained weight, and his looks began to return, the ghostly echo in his eyes began to lift. His nightmares were less frequent, less intense. One day, some months after they had begun to live together again, Sirius came up to Remus and said, "D'you know, I never thought I'd ever smile again." He was smiling as he said it, reaching out and touching Remus' arm. "I never thought I'd be happy again."

"I know," Remus said, and he did – he'd felt that way too, once.

"Thank you, Remus," Sirius said, smiling still. "You've been the best friend anyone could hope for. I love you so much."

There was a look of uncertainty in his eyes then, so it was Remus who closed the gap between them, placing one gently hand on Sirius' neck and drawing him in close. When their lips touched, for the first time in more than twelve years, Remus felt that finally, _finally_ his soul was fully healed. The kiss was sweet and slow and perfect, perfect, perfect.

Sirius sighed deeply when the kiss broke, and rested his forehead against Remus'. "How did I live all these years without you?"

And Remus said, "It doesn't matter anymore," and kissed him again.

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><p><span>AN: I know some of the canon isn't the right timeline here, but some things I felt during editing couldn't really be changed, because it would alter the story too much. I really aimed to make the reader feel what Remus felt. I hope I suceeded!

Thank you all so much for reading. Feedback, even negative, would be greatly appreciated.


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